Please don't bother to review I'm writing this story for someone on Questionable Questing and I am just posting it here in case anything happens to the QQ version.
Seth.
Part 10.
Roads. California. 1994.
Setesh had been a complete and utter fool. I'd thought this before and I thought about it again as I drove to the beach house with Samantha Carter in the seat next to me.
That fool called Setesh could have been living like this, getting to drive around with beautiful women in the latest cars, rather than setting up cults that never lasted and hiding out.
Sure becoming say a movie star or a world leader would have been a bad idea since there would be a chance that some agent of Ra's or a Tok'Ra might spot him, but he could have become a successful merchant or industrialist.
I'd done it so much better than him. I got to drive around in nice cars with an attractive woman sitting next to me while enjoying the landscape as we made our way to my beach house.
This was much more pleasant than hiding from the world in some compound with people singing my praises, but only because they'd had their minds altered by a smart virus.
As for Samantha Carter, she was wearing some sort of sun dress that showed off a lot of her legs and had ridden up quite a bit during the drive. So much so that I wondered if she'd done it on purpose.
It was a good thing I could remain focused or I'd be in danger of crashing our transport as she was very distracting to look at even when not showing off much of her body.
The car I was driving was a hybrid that was years ahead of its time, or it would have been in my world, and I'd helped to design the engine for a company that made this kind of vehicle.
It was faster than an electric car and more fun to drive, with minimum emissions so all those environmentally concerned people approved of it.
Since I could still be around a century from now it was important to do my bit for the planet, but I didn't want to come off as a hippy and scare off my military customers.
As such, I didn't let it become common knowledge that I was concerned about the quality of the air even though I would like to keep the planet intact.
Not that I let such things concern me at this time as I was driving with Samantha Carter to a beach house I owned down the coast.
We'd met mere weeks ago when she'd come to recruit me with the intent of having me consult for Project Giza, and already we were dating.
As I'd predicted computer technology had developed enough to make it possible for the humans of this world to use the Stargate without a DHD, and they were working hard on it.
I was currently working with Samantha to install the new computers and I had even designed some of the hardware they were using.
Since we'd started working together we'd hit it off, and it helped that unlike other brilliant men she'd worked with I could keep my ego in check.
We didn't see too much of each other as I was a consultant rather than part of the project, since I still had to put in some hours at my company, but I was making an effort to spend time with her.
It helped that the heads of the different departments at the firm I ran were fanatically loyal to me, even if they didn't appear to be.
Some alternation to the Nish'ta had been required to get that result, but since I had the knowledge of the Goauld that hadn't been too difficult once I had my own bio-lab set up.
I'd not make Samantha submit to me using Nish'ta as it would only take away what made her so interesting to be with, and a sudden change in her behaviour was likely to be noticed by the Air Force.
Aside from that, given that she was setting up a lot of computers and other machines, there was a good chance she'd get a strong enough electrical shock to destroy the Nish'ta and at that point, she'd realise that I'd done something to her and then I'd be in trouble.
I'd greatly expanded my influence, wealth and power but should the Air Force take action against me I would have to flee rather than fight.
"Are you alright?" I asked my girlfriend.
We weren't officially dating as romances with people you work with can cause problems, so we kept our work lives and private lives as separate as possible.
Not that this was always easy, but she was an Air Force officer, not a lovesick schoolgirl, so having to stay professional was no burden for her.
As for me, I wasn't sure I could love a human, but I was more like the Tok'Ra than a System Lord so perhaps I could in time.
"I was just thinking about the project" she admitted "There's so much to do".
She didn't need to be concerned because until Daniel Jackson joined the team the Stargate wouldn't work, not unless some other brilliant translator came along and figured out what the symbols meant.
Sure I could translate for them, but that would seem very odd since I didn't have the right background, and there was no need to rush.
Currently, Doctor Jackson was on a long-term dig in Egypt something I knew for a fact because I'd hired someone to keep tabs on him for me.
I knew that in one timeline the Stargate Project did get started without Jackson, but this wasn't that timeline, I knew this because that universe's Samantha Carter wasn't in the Air Force.
"You need to take some time off," I said "That device is thousands of years old, it's not going anywhere and you'll figure it out. Maybe you'll have an Archimedes moment".
"A what moment?" Samantha asked.
I was surprised she didn't know this one.
"You must know the story. Archimedes was trying to figure out how the volume of irregular objects could be measured with precision, he figured it out when he took a bath because he noticed that after he had stepped into the bath the water level rose," I said as I gave her a detailed answer "That was when he came to understand that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he submerged. This allowed him to find out the volume of an irregular object".
"The story goes that he was so eager to share his discovery that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran naked through the streets of they Greek city of Syracuse," I said.
Setesh hadn't witnessed the event, but he had been in Syracuse at the time and had heard the story from a witness.
"Is this some subtle hint about skinny dipping?" she asked.
Not, but that was a good idea.
"The point was that Archimedes wasn't thinking about the problem when he came up with the solution," I told her, "You need to focus on something else, have some fun and who knows what that brilliant mind of yours will cook up".
We soon arrived at the beach house and once I had put away the lugged I freshened up, then I changed into some swimwear and went out to the porch.
The house was a new property of mine, purchased with profits made from the contracts that kept the militaries of the US supplied with the best hardware.
You'd think with the end of the Cold War that military spending would decrease now that the USSR could no longer threaten the US as a superpower, and that money would be diverted to improving this nation, to truly make it the greatest in the world.
Certainly, the American healthcare and education systems could do with some improvement, but no the Americans kept spending billions to make sure they had the best hardware that money could buy.
Not that I was complaining since I'd gotten a good education and I didn't need healthcare. Plus I was going to end up as a billionaire before the end of the year.
While Sam wasn't the kind of woman to need excessive amounts of time to change she was no slob and would put some effort into looking good before she joined me on the porch.
When she came out of the beach house in some rather skimpy swimwear. I was transfixed by her appearance. She had curves in all the right places.
Despite how busy she could be she found time to exercise. This made her body a delight to look at she was in the mood to enjoy the attention.
After making her way over Sam unexpectedly kneeled in front of me, and I found myself running my fingers through her short blonde hair.
This was not typical behaviour for the young and brilliant Air Force officer. Clearly, she was in a very playful mood.
This was proven when she exposed my erection. She hadn't needed to touch me in order to get me aroused, her body and attitude had done that.
Sam was snow looking up at me as she smiled. She liked what she saw, and she liked having this kind of effect on me.
Soon Sam Carter slid a hand up my thigh and her fingers found my rock-hard shaft. She made a fist and squeezed my dick gently.
Despite the heat of the day, I could feel her warm breath on the skin of my cock, she was breathing heavily enough to let me know that she was not as calm as she appeared to be.
The Air Force officer began to move her arm as she started to give me a rather skilled handjob. She knew exactly what she was doing.
I'd decided against ever asking her how she'd gotten so good with her hands as I'd rather not know how much she'd practised this sort of thing on other men. I would never want to come off as jealous.
Before long Sam wrapped her lips around the tip of my cock. Her mouth felt incredibly hot for reasons that had nothing to do with how warm it was out here. She was horny, it was that simple.
Sam's fingers now gently held onto whatever part of my cock wasn't kept hidden from sight by her mouth. She took her time and I sat back to enjoy myself as it wasn't often she and had enough time alone to do this sort of thing.
She worked my shaft as she continued to move her head and just when it looked as if she was going to pick up the pace, she stopped.
As it turned out, she wanted to spend some time kissing and licking my piece of man meat. She knew that I wanted her to get back at it, but she couldn't help being playful.
Then she started to focus fully on pleasing me with the same kind of energy and focus she normally only devoted to one of the science projects we worked on as part of Project Giza.
These days her work involved trying to program three massive supercomputers to work together despite them being non-standard machines and she could become very focused on her work.
"Samantha, if you want to take things further you have to stop." I managed to tell her.
While my words might not have sounded as concise as I meant them to she understood what I meant.
"I want you to cum for me," Sam said, with a smile and a glint in her eye "I know I can get you hard again real soon".
If I hadn't known for a fact that human females don't go into heat, I'd wonder if she had.
Not that I had to wonder about that as soon the woman on her knees in front of me was doing her best to get my cum into her mouth.
This didn't take long at all and soon she was smirking at me as she swallowed everything I had to offer.
"I hope you'll return the favour this weekend," Samantha said as she stood up.
Her words amused me.
"So you decided to take my advice and not worry about your work" I stated.
Samantha didn't reply until she started walking away, heading for the beach.
"Well you are supposed to be a genius," she replied "So I figured you might be worth listening to".
She could do worse than follow my advice, and as we headed down to the ocean I figured that I would take advantage of the fact that she had decided to relax, and I would help her to have some badly needed fun.
Seth.
Part 11.
Fargough Tower. New York. 1994.
Slowly the long-range visual communication device rose into the air, having floated straight up out of the plain-looking box that I kept it in.
In terms of appearance, the communication devices were grey spheres of varying sizes, and while they looked unimportant they allowed for a one-way or two-way audio and visual communication link across vast interstellar distances.
These devices came in different sizes, ranging from handheld versions that were easy to hide on a person, to larger ones that can be several feet in diameter.
The biggest ones were used when a Gou'ald wished to address many of his slaves and they could be networked so that devices scattered over a planet would display what one master device recorded.
They could function the same regardless of size, and this one was about the size of a baseball and could float since I'd given it that ability.
Setesh had never been the most technologically savvy of the Goauld, but I had worked to overcome that weakness, and one day even Ancient technology would be understood by me.
I knew that the Tok'ra did not use the devices, as the system was not secure enough to ensure the secrecy of the Tok'ra base which needed to remain hidden since the rebels only had that as a defence.
However, I didn't need to worry about that as I was only using them for communication here on Earth and with Gliese 892.
That planet was only 21 light years from Earth, and since there were no Goa'uld outposts so close to Earth there was little chance of anyone eavesdropping.
In case I was wrong, my brothers and I made sure to keep our talks brief so as to give little away, and the direct link with such a close star system greatly minimised the risks.
In the show, Colonel Harold Maybourne had access to at least two of these devices. They were adapted to serve as a communication link with the secret off-world team he ran.
This team would be shut down by Colonel O'Neill when he went undercover. Something they needed to do as Maybourne's team had been annoying some of the SGC's important allies.
When the device became active I could see the face of Typhon, one of the two clones I'd carefully created. Making sure that they would be as stable as possible.
Although calling them clones was a bit of simplification as unlike those made by Ba'al my clones had quickly begun to identify as separate people. Perhaps calling them brothers would be better.
The brother I had running the off-world base had taken the name of Typhon, an identity Setesh had made use of more than two thousand years ago.
In the stories, Typhon attempted to overthrow Zeus for the supremacy of the cosmos. The two fought a cataclysmic battle, which Zeus finally won with the aid of his thunderbolts. Defeated, Typhon was cast into Tartarus.
Setesh had attempted to overthrow Ra, and been defeated only to end up in self-imposed exile here on Earth, so I could see why the name would appeal to him.
Our other brother had taken the title of Shadow Broker, because of our shared love of Mass Effect, and was working on intelligence gathering behind the scenes.
He had his own team and I'd let him take Orisis's cargo ship I'd left in Egypt so that he could scout out worlds near Earth.
The craft was too short range to get any idea of what was going on in the greater galaxy, but at least we could be sure that no Goa'uld were messing about anywhere near Earth.
Sure the Shadow Broker might fly off somewhere far away with his ship, but I didn't think he would given how comfortable life on this planet could be.
If he wanted to become a galactic information broker then he would need to keep an eye on Earth, to know what the SGC got up to once it was formed, and to know, at least in general terms, what I had planned.
Plus it would be a lot easier for him to set himself up as Stargate's version of the Shadow Broker if he had my support.
"How are things with Project EXALT?" I asked.
I let my clones get on with their own business because they weren't here to serve me but to work with me. It was good to have someone I knew to be competent in charge over in Gliese 892.
"They are going well," reported Typhon.
My brother should have things running smoothly since I was keeping him well-supplied. I could have gone to check up on him in person, but I wanted to limit the use of the stargate down in the basement in case it was detected.
Aside from that, I didn't want Typhon to think that I was looking over his shoulder. That would only lead to mistrust building between us.
"We've begun scouting operations. So far my people have been going to worlds that Setesh knew to be part of Ra's dominion before he began hiding out on Earth," my clone said "So far we've found no sign of any Goa'uld presence just a few abandoned human populations that are medieval in terms of development".
That was interesting to hear.
"I think Ra's domain is smaller than we expected" Typhon was now saying "But it's not because of the Asgard as those worlds were abandoned a long time ago. So long that Ra had become a legend to the natives".
I suspected the Goa'uld empire had been in decline before Ra died. The death of the Supreme System Lord must have shaken things up as well as signalling to Sokar and Anubis that this was a good time to return.
If the Asgard were at war with the Goa'uld then it hadn't driven Ra to reclaim any of the worlds he'd abandoned. I wondered if that meant he'd already been taken out.
"My Chimaera teams haven't encountered any threats," Typhon told me "Even the less friendly humans don't have anything more deadly than a crossbow".
My brother had divided EXALT into four sections, each named for a monster spawned by the mythical creature he was named for.
The defenders of the off-world base were called Orthrus, which was the two-headed dog who guarded the Cattle of Geryon. His covert ops group were called Cerberus, after the multiheaded dog who guarded the gates of Hades, and because he was also a big Mass Effect fan.
His R&D department was named after the Lernaean Hydra, and he'd gone with that name just because he was also a big Marvel fan. Although we weren't fascists and we didn't have an Infinity Stone.
His off-world teams were part of the Chimaera section because it worked with the theme more than anything else.
I listened as Typhon let me know that he was making deals with the primitives on the worlds his Chimaera teams had scouted.
We didn't need access to any abandoned mines, and they had no technology worth acquiring, but it would be good to have a source of food that didn't require me to send supplies through the Stargate.
So in exchange for more advanced farming methods and some farming tools that I would supply EXALT would have its food needs met by farms off-world.
Meaning that EXALT would be able to grow beyond what I could support.
"Sounds as if you have things well in hand" I commented.
Typhon didn't bore me with the smaller details involved in running things and soon the communication sphere was put away.
This left me free to focus on the other bit of important work I needed to deal with today.
Despite my efforts to keep things on track with Project Giza, there had been limits to what I was willing to do.
I couldn't fool Samantha Carter and I didn't wish to jeopardise my relationship with her by pulling out of the project or somehow screwing things up.
Given the changes I'd already made to the timeline due to having made contact with the Asgard known as Loki, there was little point in delaying things further, so I was working to ensure that the Stargate would be opened this year rather than two years from now.
When Project Giza was ready to bring Doctor Jackson in as one of the translators, I offered to handle the matter. I promised that I would get the Egyptologist to join the team, no matter what it cost.
I was known to sponsor archaeological digs across the world, most of which were legal these days, so getting a meeting with Doctor Jackson wasn't difficult.
He wasn't as desperate at this point in his career as he was in the movie, but he wouldn't refuse an offer of funding.
Before he ever set foot in my office I had studied the files that my people had put together about the man. I didn't skimp on the intelligence gathering.
This version of Doctor Jackson didn't look at all like James Spader, rather he was the Michael Shanks version, I wondered if all of SGC would like the actors who played them.
Born on July 8, 1965, Daniel Jackson is the only living child of Melburn and Claire Jackson, archaeologists who were crushed to death while supervising the placement of a piece of Egyptian art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A grim reminder that health and safety in the workplace is no joke. Even I took that seriously and I was part Goa'uld.
Daniel's maternal grandfather and only living relative, Nick Ballard was a noted Dutch archaeologist and too busy to take responsibility for the orphaned Jackson. So the young Daniel Jackson ended up in foster care.
According to some information, I shouldn't have due to it being part of someone's medical history, Daniel Jackson visited his grandfather in a mental institution until they had an argument one day and then they parted ways.
He had no other family and not much in the way of friends. He did have some old love interest, one of which ended up becoming the host of a Goa'uld. Not that this was possible as I'd dealt with parasite a while back.
Jackson's theories about the Pyramids of Giza being much older than they are had already been revealed to members of the scientific community and become something of a joke despite them being more correct than even he realised.
His file also noted that he was a linguist who speaks 23 languages, no wonder he was considered to be a genius by some of his teachers, if I hadn't known that things would work out better for him if he worked with the SGC I would have recruited for my EXALT project and taken him off-world.
The voice of a young woman filled the room via an intercom and brought me out of my thoughts.
"Doctor Fargough, Doctor Jackson is here to see you" reminded my assistant.
There was no sense in delaying. I would need to convince Jackson to become part of Project Giza or find some other way of making sure the Tau'ri figured out the Stargate on my terms.
"Show him in," I said.
It didn't take long for the young woman who helped to make sure that I wasn't overwhelmed by work to bring the archaeologist into my office.
Of course, his eye was drawn to the historical artefacts I had on display. I let him admire the collection before getting his attention.
"Please sit down, Doctor Jackson" I invited.
He did so and since he didn't seem to have any idea of what to say I knew that I was going to have to do most of the talking during this conversation.
"I asked to see you because I know that while you do have some funding left you'll soon be needing more" I mentioned "I have a way for you to ensure that you have all the funding you'll ever need".
This didn't shock the young man much as he knew that I sponsored digs all around the world.
"Do you want me to join one of your teams?" he asked.
Well, it wasn't my team.
"Not exactly," I said "There's a project that I am working on behalf of the Air Force. It could use your insights".
Jackson didn't look as if he approved.
"Right, you're a weapons manufacturer" he stated "I don't see why you'd need someone like me to help you build missiles".
"My company doesn't make weapons, we make guidance systems that can be used for military purposes, but that's not all we do here" I corrected "This is a diverse company with lots of interests".
Jackson could get annoying when he thought he had the moral high ground.
"Why would the Air Force need an archaeologist?" he asked.
Now that was a good question.
"Back before World War 2 an archaeologist uncovered something rather odd in Giza" I answered "It was moved out of Egypt before the Nazis could claim it and brought to the US. What's interesting about this find is that it's made from a mineral that can't be found naturally. Which means it was fabricated rather than made using some local material".
This was impossible for the Ancient Egyptians because they had been an advanced civilisation they were never that sophisticated.
"The device is believed to be alien in origin" I stated.
Jackson seemed amused.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked.
Given that he made fun of because he believed aliens were involved with building the pyramids I could understand why he might think that.
"Doctor Jackson, I'm the CEO of a company and a billionaire" I stated "I didn't get where I am today by playing pranks".
He'd looked as if he were about to leave, but he remained sitting.
"All I'm asking from you is to consult with a team that is trying to decipher some writing they found on a cover stone," I said "And maybe that will give us some insight into the device. In exchange I'm willing to fund any dig you want to go on".
The fact that General West had entrusted this recruitment to me was a sign of how important I'd become to Project Giza.
"No you wouldn't prank me" agreed Doctor Jackson.
"All you have to do is come with me and see the mystery we need your help to solve," I said "I'm certain that once you do you'll want to help us".
I had wondered if I would need to hit him with the Nis'ta, but that turned out to be unnecessary as he agreed to be a consultant in exchange for a very generous cheque.
Seth.
Part 12.
Project Giza. Cheyenne Mountain.
With only a little guidance and prodding from me, Doctor Daniel Jackson had come to the mountain. He'd put together the clues and discovered how to use the Stargate in very little time.
Much to what I imagined was the embarrassment of the other so-called experts who had been brought into the project as part of the effort to figure out the mystery that was the Stargate.
Now that Jackson had some useful information to share General West had called for a meeting of some VIPs. A meeting that I had been invited to join.
While I didn't know any of the bigwigs involved, aside from West, despite having been selling hardware to the military for many years, I recognised the uniforms and knew that this project had drawn the attention of the leaders of this nation.
Sitting around the big table in the briefing room were two Generals, West and an army General, a Navy Admiral and a man in a suit who I was given to understand worked directly for the President.
There were some lower-ranking officers who didn't have seats at the big table and who ignored my presence since I was only a civilian.
The only one of the lower-ranking officers who had a seat at the big table (which I did as well due to work for the Project and my importance as a military supplier) was Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill who already looked bored.
Currently, Doctor Daniel Jackson was in consultation with Samantha Carter and Doctor Langford, about the presentation, despite the seriousness of this situation I couldn't help looking at Samantha.
Our work didn't leave us with much time for our relationship, yet despite this, I had grown very fond of her and I couldn't help picturing her naked as she worked even though this important meeting required my full attention.
"Okay, kids. Any day now" said O'Neill.
It was Doctor Jackson who began the presentation. He was using a projector to show some slides he had made as PowerPoint hadn't been invented yet.
"Here you can see the previously unknown symbols on the Giza Cartouche," he began by saying "As you know they have defied all attempts at translation, and that is because these symbols are not hieroglyphs at all. They are constellations".
Doctor Langford, Sam and I weren't surprised by this news as we already knew. In fact, I had known for decades.
"Constellations?" questioned General West, who hadn't been fully informed since he'd wanted to wait for this meeting "Doctor Jackson? What does this discovery mean?".
Daniel Jackson looked over at Sam before letting her address the officers.
"Well, sir, the constellations correspond to the symbols on the Stargate," she said "Now that we know this, I believe we can dial the Gate, by matching the correct constellation with each of the symbols".
Which didn't fully answer the question.
"We are going to need a bit more than that, Captain" stated West.
Sam had been burning the candle at both ends too much recently.
"Oh, right. Sorry, sirs" she said before giving a better explanation, "We believe that the symbols act as a coordinate system".
A number of slides were shown to help get this across.
"This shows that you can determine a destination by using six symbols to establish a 3D triangulation in space" Sam explained "All you need to do is a seventh point to represent the point of origin. Without that symbol the rest of address, as we call it, won't work".
Not everyone seemed to be following so I decided to help.
"It's a bit like an area code," I told everyone who didn't understand "If you don't know the code then you won't get a connection when you dial the number".
That seemed to be enough for them to grasp what was going on.
"And did you find this seventh symbol?" the admiral asked.
Indeed they had and with it, they could reach Abydos, not that they knew what it was called.
In the movie, Abydos is placed in the Kaliem Galaxy though its gate address only has seven chevrons.
Any hardcore fan of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, knows that you need an eight chevron address to reach a gate in another galaxy and you need ZPM levels of power to open a gate that far.
Abydos is located here in the Milky Way galaxy and is in fact among the closest planets to Earth in the network which is why steller drift hadn't rendered the gate address useless.
In galactic terms, it's a stone's throw away, which was why I was able to reach it on my ship despite the vessel being an old model with a slow hyperdrive.
"Oh, yes sir. Daniel Jackson identified it on the Gate" she answered "We are just waiting for the go-ahead to dial it up".
The higher-ranking officers exchanged looks. They'd known that Gate could be a means of transport for a while due to one of the earlier attempts at translation having been a 'gateway to heaven' they just hadn't expected us to have it working right now.
"So this Stargate works like a phone" asked the other General "You dial it up and then connect to another Stargate that's somewhere else in the universe".
A simple way of looking at, but mostly correct.
"If the Gate does open a portal of some kind, maybe a wormhole then there must be something in that other system to anchor it," I said "Another Stargate, and if that is the case then someone could go to this other world and even come back".
The information excited our visitors.
"This could make the moon landing look like a trip to the beach" commented the army General "We should send a team".
I would be on that team if I had anything to say about it.
"And that would be my team" stated Colonel O'Neill.
Doctor Langford didn't like the sound of that.
"It should be a civilian team with a military escort" she insisted "If you want any hope of getting back".
One of the guests raised a good point.
"If this Stargate is two-way and it was made by aliens how come they haven't used to it to come to Earth?" he asked.
Because the Stargate was buried for so long the Tau'ri had become a myth to most of the galaxy.
"We don't know" said Doctor Jackson "But the Stargate has been sitting around for decades, if they were going to use it they would have by now, and it was buried for so long that it could have been forgotten about".
I noticed that O'Neill looked serious for a moment. So unlike him.
"There's a possibility that whoever lives on the other end of the Gate won't want any unexpected visitors so we need a military team," he said "We can always bring in the civilian experts".
General West stood up before speaking.
"No one is going anywhere" he insisted "Not until our probe has been sent through".
They had proto-MALP, the precursor of the machine they sent through the Stargate in the show.
"I guess we would all like to see if this thing actually works," said the man in the suit "Would be nice if all the funding led to something".
That seemed to be all the presidential approval that was needed. Either the president had already approved or this man in the suit had the real authority here.
"Get the probe ready and dial the Gate" ordered General West.
This actually took some time to prepare as there were many last-minute adjustments to be made to the supercomputers and to the probe that would be sent through the Stargate.
I ended up in the Control Room along with Samatha Cater as the blast barrier was raised so as to allow the folks in the Conference Room audience to observe.
As the Gate was dialed there was no rumbling and the Stargate didn't spin either. There was no need for any of that with the right hardware installed, hardware that I had helped to design.
Everybody other than me was soon holding their breath and then when the final symbol was encoded the Stargate made the whoosh noise that fans everywhere would recognise.
Despite there having been quite a bit of prep work it felt as if everything was happening very quickly.
"We have a stable wormhole," said a technician. "Sending in the probe".
The probe was NASA's contribution to the project, all though they didn't know it. Originally this device was meant to travel on the surface of Mars, so it would be able to handle Abydos easily enough.
After a few more modifications, it would serve its new function quite nicely, but until the people here knew what the probe would go through there was a limit to what features it could be installed with.
"We are receiving telemetry. Atmospheric composition is close to Earth's" reported Samantha. The temperature is 38°C a little over 100°F".
Hardly shocking news to me as deserts are generally hot and dry as would expect. The average highest temperature is in the upper 90s Fahrenheit, and temperatures of more than 100 are common.
Of course, Abydos isn't all desert as it was there would be no oxygen-producing plants and it did have small oceans. The world was slowly heating up to the point that it would become inhabitable but that would take tens of thousands of years.
Very much unlike Earth, less than 40% of the planet is covered in water, making the entire surface of the world arid, even near the polar regions.
The climate of Abydos is subject to great change, primarily with the presence of mighty earthquakes and torrential sandstorms.
Most of these natural occurrences are due to Abydos' three moons, which exert great tidal forces against the planet and make subtle alterations to the world's magnetic field.
Via remote Sam was maneuvering the probe around the Gate. Because of this, I could see a passageway that I once walked through when visiting that world.
"I wonder if that is how the Gate is supposed to be controlled" I heard Jackson say "It has the symbols on it".
He was referring to the DHD, which indeed did allow someone to make use of the Stargate.
"It would have to be a computer more complex and powerful than anything we can produce," I said "Which makes sense since any civilization able to travel to other worlds would require computers able to process massive amounts of data".
Something I knew to be factually true since I knew how the Goa'uld made their computers and their tech was based on that of the Gate Builders.
"Look there's some writing!" called out Jackson.
Samantha made the probe focus on the symbols on the wall.
"That must be the address of Earth" Jackson mused.
It was as a matter of fact, but before we could discuss that the Gate shut down. We couldn't feed it enough power to keep it open for longer.
"We lost signal, but according to the data, the planet will support life" reported Carter "The gravity was reading near Earth normal".
Once we got back to the Conference Room, General West looked at O'Neill.
"Form your team" he ordered "You'll be taking Captain Carter, along with Doctor Jackson, and Doctor Fargough if they wish to go".
O'Neill was not happy about this.
"Sir, I can't guarantee their safety," he argued.
I was insulted by the idea that I would need his protection.
"Colonel O'Neill," Langford said, "Doctor Jackson is the only one of us who can fully understand the writing in that structure and he has taken part in digs in similar environments".
Before the air force officer could say anything else Langford spoke again.
"Captain Carter and Doctor Fargough built and programmed the supercomputers that opened the Gate so if you want to make it home you are going to need them".
She wasn't wrong as I did know how to use the DHD so unless Ra turned up, and that was unlikely given that the Asgard should have killed him by now, then we should be able to get back without too much trouble.
Seth.
Part 13.
Pyramid. Abydos. 1994.
As the Stargate shut down this ancient structure seemed to suddenly fill with darkness as it was currently nighttime on this part of the planet and as such rather cold.
Lucky for everyone who had been sent to this alien world the range in temperatures had been accounted for and we had all been provided with suitable clothing of a military style.
The darkness began to retreat as sources of artificial light were provided and soon I could the somewhat familiar stones. I had been in here some years ago so as to acquire the tablet that Ra kept in a vault here.
The tablet that mentioned the lost city. That treasure would remain mine, and even if it hadn't been taken by me, there was no way the Tau'ri could make use of it, not with a ZPM and much greater knowledge of the Stargate, but perhaps my own version of Stargate Command would be able to one day.
"Spread out" ordered Colonel O'Neill.
Doctor Jackson and I stayed back as the military types moved about to ensure that we were the only people here and that the area around us was made secure.
"Colonel, you should see this!" called out one of the airforce officers.
I decided to slowly move over to see what the officer had found. They had no idea what it was they were looking at, but I knew better. Someone, most likely a Jaffa warrior, had dropped a staff weapon, it was just lying there on the ground. It was already partly covered by sand so it had been here for a while.
"That wasn't there when we sent the probe through," said Samantha as she knelt down to get a better look at the device "It's definitely nothing natural".
One of the officers shined his torch up and down the staff as I thought about what could have happened since we sent the proto-MALP to Abybos just a few days ago. That machine was still here, unbothered, so the Jaffa who had been here hadn't messed with it.
"I think it's a weapon," the officer with the torch said "I can see a trigger".
Colonel O'Neill looked very concerned I noticed. A change from his normally less serious attitude.
"Carefully pick them up and put them on the scout" he ordered "If we can get the Stargate open then we can send them back to base for a proper examination".
If we could bring back alien technology on this first mission as well as proof that it was possible to use the gate to reach other worlds then the SGC would be founded very quickly.
"On the subject of getting back to base, shouldn't you Doctors be working on that" reminded the man in charge.
This was only meant to be a short trip so I knew it would be best to get back to work before O'Neill decided to set off the nuclear weapon we'd brought with us because he had decided there was some sort of threat here and that we were all expendable in the face of that.
"Whoever dropped these staffs were running for the gate" commented an officer "You can see the tracks in the sand. I'd say they were human and wearing boots. They were heavy guys too".
Abhuman to be more accurate since while Jaffa were descended from the humans who were taken from Earth they had been altered to the point that they were their own species and could only breed with more of their own kind.
I hadn't seen those tracks until they were pointed out, but now that they had been shown to me, I saw that they were made by the boots of an adult male judging by the size, and they did seem to have been made by heavy men. Jaffa in full armour would be my guess.
Not all of them were heading for the gate, some had just run out of the structure. This wasn't a planned retreat they simply ran away.
"Sir, these tracks were made by people who ran towards the gate and it is hard to tell because of our tracks, but if they did go through the gate and they didn't come to Earth then where did they go?" wondered an Air Force officer.
Most Jaffa would have memorised the addresses of dozens of worlds with their master's dominion during their travels. The Jaffa here had fled, which was odd behaviour for such warriors, and some had even dropped their weapons, which again is odd behaviour for members of a warrior race.
Those that hadn't fled had just disappeared into thin air, not even making it outside, and some of them had dropped their staff weapons as well as they fled the Pyramid. The Jaffa must have been very scared to scatter and run like this.
What happened to the weapons of the Jaffa who didn't drop their weapons?
There was only one group of people in this universe who could just make people vanish like this. The Asgard had been here they had removed the Jaffa and then just left without bothering the local humans at all. Some of the Jaffa had managed to escape.
That made sense. The Jaffa were a primitive lot who thought any technology more advanced than the wheelbarrow was some sort of magic. The technology of the Asgard would terrify them.
"They went to a different world," I said as I began to unpack some of my equipment "As was mentioned in the briefing the gates work little telephones only for planets, if you know the address you can dial it and go to other worlds".
I tuned out the conversation for a time so that I could focus on hooking my laptop to the DHD, this was no ordinary portable computer, I had built it myself so that I could obtain information from a DHD.
"So this how the gate is supposed to be controlled," Samatha said as she came over "It took us more than a decade and three supercomputers working in concert just to get the Stargate open. Whoever these aliens are they are centuries, maybe even thousands of years ahead of us".
More than that. The Ancient had millions of years to perfect their technology and the gate network in this galaxy was old even by the time they left. Even if the gates had all been replaced with superior models by the Ancients before they left this galaxy then the network was at least two million years old.
"There's no way you can control this device with one of our computers," said Carter.
Normally she'd be correct, but I wasn't trying to control the gate, I just wanted to see what addresses had been dialled. The gates recorded that information for people to find. If you knew where to look.
The addresses were easy enough to check and I could see that most of the recorded addresses were for worlds in Ra's domain, aside from a few that I didn't recognise. So he hadn't always come here by ship, or he might have sent his people to check on Abydos.
"How many Stargate addresses can there be" asked one of the officers as he saw the list I was looking at.
This man was Charles Kawalsky. We'd meet after the briefing and he was one of O'Neill's old friends. I recalled that he died very early in Season 1 of the SG1. I wondered how long he would last in this timeline.
"With 38 symbols, there are 1,987,690,320 possible addresses" I answered, "This device only stores the last fifty that were dialled from here, and if you don't know the symbol that is your point of origin these addresses will only work from this Stargate".
I'd calculated that before.
"That's assuming all of those worlds have gates that aren't buried or have somehow been destroyed, and assuming every possible gate there could be was actually built" I added "I don't think it would be practical to have more than a few tens of thousands of them. The network would be too large to large to manage".
Carter knew what this meant even if others didn't.
"So random dialling would be pointless" she reasoned "Because if only a tiny fraction of those potential addresses have working gates then the chances of randomly picking a working gate out of the nearly 2 million possible addresses would be astronomically small".
I nodded my head.
"And that's without accounting for steller drift," I said.
This wouldn't matter on this trip, but we would need to create software that would account for drift in the computers back home if we wanted to visit worlds further away from Earth than worlds like this one. Abydos was a stone's throw away when compared to some planets accessible via the Stargate.
"So you can get us home?" questioned Kawalsky.
Everyone here knew that the mission could have been one way, but the men here weren't just going to accept this if there was even a slight chance of getting back.
Of course, I could dial the gate back to Earth whenever I wished and there was no chance of us coming out of the gate in the basement of my building because that had been deactivated, but I had to pretend otherwise.
"Given enough time to work" I answered, "It will go a lot faster if your men search this place for any symbols on display and then Doctor Jackson to take a look at".
I turned the disgraced Egyptologist.
"Doctor, searching ancient places for interesting things is your area of expertise, you should check out the lower levels" I advised.
Colonel O'Neill heard that and organised some of his men to escort Doctor Jackson so that he could check out all the writing on the walls and find Earth's gate address.
"How are you able to work with this technology?" asked Jack O'Neill "I've never seen a computer this small. Where did you get it?".
The colonel was no fool even though he played the part well.
"I've known about the gate since 1981" I explained "I was an assistant back then but I did a lot of work on the first supercomputers that could interface with the gate, and I've never stopped trying to figure it all out. As for the laptop, I am a genius with computers and I can build my own. Don't forget who designed the guidance systems for the planes you fly".
O'Neill nodded and moved away. He was right to be somewhat dubious about my expertise as they were not natural, but he seemed to have accepted my explanation. Although I wouldn't be surprised if he was still a little suspicious of me.
I was still working with Samatha when Doctor Jackson raced into the room.
"Captain Carter, Doctor Fargough, you have to see this" he insisted.
We raced off to find that the door to Ra's treasure chamber had been left open. I knew for certain that I had shut that door when I left, and I'd certainly not ransacked the place in a hurry.
"Captain, Doctor," said O'Neill, who was already here "By the looks of things a group of men in heavy boots came to this chamber, grabbed what they could from what looks like a hidden museum, and then left before vanishing as a group, but they didn't run and they didn't leave their weapons behind".
I inspected the spot from where the Jaffa had vanished. This time it was not the Asgard's doing. Instead, the Jaffa had used the transport rings to return to a ship in orbit or one that had landed here.
My guess would be that Ra or someone who had been close to him, dropped by the system to collect the tribute of naquadah and to grab what they could from the treasury before either getting blown up by the Asgard, swept up in those beams, or they'd just fled.
Abydos is not an important world in the domain of the Supreme System Lord so it wasn't shocking that it would have been ignored by Ra and the other Gou'ald until recently.
It would be the kind of place Ra would run to if the Asgard were bringing down the entire empire, but since we hadn't run into any Horus Guard I didn't think he was still here.
I wondered how that war, if it could be called a war, was going. The Asgard struggle with the Replicators would have left the little aliens with diminished resources, but they wouldn't need to rush, they could take their time taking out the System Lords one at a time if needs be. Dismantling the entire kingdom of Goa'uld before moving on.
"There's no mummy!" called out Doctor Jackson.
It took me a moment to understand the importance of that.
"This is odd because on Earth chambers like this are normally used to hold the possessions of an ancient king so that he can take them with him to the afterlife" said Daniel Jackson "But there's no mummy here, nor any signs that this was ever a burial site".
I could see why he would be thinking that way.
"Maybe the guys in the heavy boots took the body with them" suggested Kawalsky.
O'Neill didn't care for this speculation.
"Our mission here is to figure out if there is any immediate danger to Earth via the Stargate and to report back that information" he reminded everyone "While there might have been some sort of struggle here we don't know for sure and we need to secure a way home. We can always come back with a proper science team and let them go over this place".
I really hoped that he didn't nuke this Pyramid just because it looked as if someone here had run into trouble. If the explosion was powerful enough it could cause the gate to blow and that would end life on this planet
"Yes, I'll back to inspecting the symbols" agreed Doctor Jackson.
I was still going through the address when the young man came over and informed me about the lack of a point of origin on the display of symbols he'd found.
"So we are stuck here?" Kawalsky demanded to know.
I spoke to defuse the situation.
"Even if we didn't have Earth's address there are other worlds accessible via the Stargate," I said "But that doesn't matter since I have this world's point of origin right here".
"So we just need to confirm this Earth's address, which is easy to do with a program I created," I said.
The symbols Doctor Jackson had found were matched against symbols on the gate and in the night sky. The true test would be if the gate created a connection between here and Earth.
"Okay let's dial the gate and get out of here" said the colonel.
Doctor Jackson did just that and the gate opened. This caused the military types to cheer and even I couldn't help smirking.